Murder One

by Robert Dugoni

  “Okay, so how does the shooter play in to all of this?”

  “I’m not sure he or she does. We saw all three as working together, but maybe not. Maybe the shooter got there thinking she would kill Vasiliev and swim off. She picked the night because of the storm, and everything is going according to plan until she hears a boat engine approaching, so she hides in the bushes and waits until they leave.”

  “Except Reid passed the test,” Crosswhite said. “She passed the polygraph.”

  He smiled. “But not the Crosswhite test. And you had what, fifteen years to evaluate every possible lie a high school kid could conjure up.”

  “Doesn’t matter if we can’t break her alibi, put her at the scene.”

  “I know.” Rowe removed his sunglasses, squinting as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “It’s good, Sparrow,” she assured him. “It makes sense. It’s progress. Let’s get something to eat and some caffeine. We’ll go back and digest everything we have and go over it again. Maybe latents will have processed Sloane’s fingerprints and Wright will have good news on the shoe prints. Then we go to work on finding the other suspect.”

  He nodded and turned for the car, stopped. “What other suspect?”

  “Sam Hill,” she said.

  THREE TREE POINT

  BURIEN, WASHINGTON

  They made love with the windows open, feeling the light breeze and hearing the sound of waves lapping on the shore. Afterward, they lay atop the rumpled sheets, sweat glistening. Tendrils of light streamed through the two skylights, which had been the extent of Sloane’s architectural contribution when he and Tina bought the home and set to remodeling it. He wanted to be able to lie in bed at night and look up at the stars, like he had as a kid when one of the foster families gave him a room in the attic with a window.

  Barclay lay beside him trying to catch her breath. She gave an audible moan with each exhale. “I hope your neighbors aren’t home,” she said, making him laugh. She sat up and put her feet on the floor, arching her back, pulling air into her lungs. “I need a glass of water.”

  “I’ll get it,” he said.

  She reached back and put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “You’ve done enough. Just point me in the direction.”

  Sloane stretched out a lazy arm toward the stairs. “Kitchen, left cupboard as you face the sink.”

  She kissed him passionately. “I’ll get two,” she said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Maybe for now, but after what I have in store for you, you might very well be dehydrated.”

  She rolled off the bed, standing, seemingly not the least bit bashful about her nakedness. She had the body of a dancer, with sinewy muscles and no detectable fat. “I’ll need to borrow a bathrobe,” she said, “unless you want the neighbors to see me as well as hear me.”

  “Back of the bathroom door,” he said.

  She emerged, rolling up the sleeves of his navy blue terry-cloth robe that fell to her ankles. Sloane had given Tina’s clothes to Goodwill.

  “I liked the show better before you drew the curtain,” he said.

  She turned at the doorway with an impish grin. “Really? Well, the next screening will be . . . downstairs.” She dropped the robe and took off running.

  TWELVE

  LAURELHURST

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  They would not get the caffeine they needed or the food they craved, but Rowe didn’t care, and he knew Crosswhite didn’t, either. Though neither would say it aloud, like baseball players sitting silent in a dugout for fear of jinxing a pitcher in the midst of throwing a no-hitter, each was optimistic this could be the break they needed, the break every investigation needed.

  Andrew Laub had called as Rowe maneuvered through afternoon traffic on their return to the Justice Center. A woman in Laurelhurst had called and asked to speak to the detectives in charge of the murder investigation—“the one in Laurelhurst,” was how she put it. She said she might have some information; she didn’t know, so she was calling. They had received dozens of tips, but this lady, Laub said, had been modest and quiet, like maybe she really did know something.

  Rowe and Crosswhite would find out soon enough.

  Mary Beth Blume answered a cathedral wood-and-lead-glass door. She appeared too small and demure to be living in such a grand expanse of overindulgence, but her demeanor fit Laub’s description of her voice on the phone—“tentative.” Dressed in a pair of designer jeans, a V-neck cashmere sweater over a white T-shirt, and gold-colored slippers, the kind with a rubber tread, Blume briefly considered their badges, seeming much more interested in the unmarked blue Impala parked in the street.

  “Is it okay there?” Crosswhite asked. “Would you like us to move it?”

  “No . . . it’s fine,” she said, letting them in and closing the door.

  Rowe deduced it would not have been fine had it been an actual police cruiser, visible to all the neighbors and likely to be the subject of interest and subsequent questions.

  Blume had straw-colored hair that curved just below her chin and looked to have been recently brushed. “My husband is on his way home,” she said, seeming uncertain what to do next. “He thought he should be here.”

  “That’s fine,” Rowe said, trying to maintain an air of calm. “We’re in no hurry.” He looked about, hoping it might spur Blume to invite them to sit down. His hip burned.

  “You have a beautiful home,” Crosswhite said.

  That could have been the understatement of the year. The entryway was bigger than Rowe’s master bedroom and bathroom combined, with black and white marble floor tiles, gold-leaf mirrors on wallpapered walls, and an elaborate chandelier hanging from a domed ceiling above a newel-post staircase that curved down from the upper floor.

  Blume stopped fidgeting with her hands long enough to point to an adjacent room. “We can wait in the living room.” She stepped down into a sunken room mostly champagne-colored but for a black baby-grand piano near a bay window that provided a view of the manicured front yard.

  “Do you play?” Crosswhite asked, moving toward the keys.

  Rowe knew his partner hoped to relax Blume by talking about a comfortable subject. The poor woman looked as though she might throw up at any moment, which, in a perverse way, made Rowe optimistic she might have some information of value.

  “Not too much anymore,” Blume said. Then, as if to explain, “My mother thought it was important for me to learn an instrument. But I haven’t had much time lately. We’ve been in the middle of a remodel.”

  Of course they were, Rowe thought. A three-to-four-million-dollar home clearly needed a face-lift to make it presentable.

  “Sounds like we had similar mothers,” Crosswhite said.

  “You play?” Rowe asked.

  She gave him the eye roll. “Twelve years.”

  “My son plays,” Blume added. “Though now he mostly plays his guitar. He’s in a band.”

  Rowe heard regret in the woman’s voice. The purr of a car engine drew his attention to the bay window as a canary-yellow convertible Porsche pulled up the driveway and parked in front of one of the four garage bays. The personalized license plate read blume. The only thing missing now was the golden retriever or yellow Lab.

  “That’s Richard,” Mary Beth said as a short, balding man wearing designer sunglasses popped from the car fixing his windblown hair, and jogged in the direction of the front door. Mary Beth met her husband in the entry with a look that clearly conveyed, “They’re here.”

  Richard walked past her without so much as an acknowledgment, dropped his keys on a table abutting the staircase, and fixed his silver sunglasses atop his head. He stepped down into the living room, hand extended, all business, dressed like his wife in designer jeans, a gray cashmere sweater pulled up his forearms, and loafers. After introductions, they remained standing, again seemingly uncertain of the next step. Rowe couldn’t take it anymore and blazed a trail to the sofa. Crosswhite joined him, and Rich
ard and Mary Beth sat to Rowe’s right in the two matching chairs. When neither initiated conversation, Rowe said, “My detective sergeant indicated you might have some information that relates to the shooting.”

  The Blume home was half a mile south of Vasiliev’s home—Rowe and Crosswhite had clocked it—and across from the public easement.

  Richard sat forward, forearms on his knees. Despite strands of gray in what hair remained atop his head, his goatee was solid black. He looked too young to be living in a house so grand, driving a car so expensive. Rowe deduced him to be either a trust-fund baby or one of the lucky ones who hit the Internet start-up craze at the right time and got out before the crash.

  “I need to know whether we have any liability here . . . before we talk, whether I should call my attorney.”

  What was it with rich people and attorneys? Rowe wondered. They talked of attorneys as if they kept them on leashes like other people kept dogs.

  “I don’t understand,” Rowe said. “I was told you may have some information. Do you think there could be some liability?”

  Blume looked at his wife. The woman sat chewing her thumbnail, grimacing. “No. It’s not that.” Richard paused, lips pursed. “We just don’t want his name in the paper—the publicity.”

  “Whose name?” Rowe asked.

  Blume again looked to his wife, but this time his expression was more of a question. “I’m sorry. I thought my wife told you all of this.”

  “We were waiting for you,” Rowe explained.

  “It’s our son, Joshua. He was out the other night; he shouldn’t have been, but he was. He snuck out.” The picture began to sharpen for Rowe, and with clarity, the butterflies of anticipation again began to flutter. “That’s why we didn’t come forward earlier. We didn’t know. Joshua was afraid of the consequences because we’d told him we’d ground him if we caught him sneaking out again.”

  “Your son was out the morning Mr. Vasiliev was shot,” Rowe said, trying to move the story along.

  Mary Beth pointed in the direction of the bay window. “He was coming up the street. His bedroom is off the porch in the back. He was . . .” She stopped speaking when her husband raised a hand. Rowe could only imagine what Crosswhite was thinking. She would have pistol-whipped Rowe if he ever similarly disrespected her.

  “He was out with friends,” Richard said. “They dropped him off down the road so we wouldn’t hear the car engine. He has a room in the back with a slider. Anyway, he saw something. It scared him, actually.”

  “What did he see?” Crosswhite asked.

  “There’s no liability here, is there, for not coming forward earlier? I mean, if this even amounts to anything . . . there’s no repercussions?”

  “There’s no repercussions I can think of,” Rowe said. “Except maybe between you and your son.” He smiled. Richard Blume did not. “Why don’t you just tell us what your son thinks he saw?”

  “I think maybe it would be better if Joshua told you,” Richard said, standing.

  THREE TREE POINT

  BURIEN, WASHINGTON

  Sloane chased her down the stairs, hand sliding on the railing. When he hit the landing, the entire house shook. When he rounded the corner for the kitchen, Barclay dodged him, but he got a hand on her waist and pulled her to him, wrestling with her from behind until she suddenly stopped, looking past him. He turned to see Charles Jenkins at the kitchen door, about to knock. Instead Jenkins pulled back his hand and quickly retreated down the steps.

  “Shit,” Sloane said.

  She covered a grin. “A neighbor?”

  “My investigator . . . and friend.”

  She laughed. “Sorry. I’ll go upstairs.”

  Sloane pulled open the door, standing behind it. “Hey. Hey!”

  Jenkins turned at the gate. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Hold on. Let me get some clothes on. Just . . . wait.” He went back upstairs and slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a cutoff sweatshirt.

  Barclay stood in the bathroom wearing his robe, still smiling. “Did he see the show?”

  “Enough of it.”

  “I’ll take a shower. I’m not sure I can look him in the eye at the moment.”

  Sloane found Jenkins in the easement, standing beside the Buick.

  “In my defense, I was about to knock.”

  Sloane shook his head, the situation now amusing. Seagulls cawed overhead. “Sorry about that.”

  “You and me both. The last thing I needed was a glimpse of your hairy ass.”

  “So what’s up?”

  “Nothing. I tracked down some more employees for Pendergrass and stopped to give him a report.” Pendergrass lived nearby, in the city of Des Moines. “Thought I’d check in and find out how it went at the Justice Center.”

  “I’m sorry, I should have called. I left work early and took the kayak out. Barclay surprised me.”

  Jenkins waved it off, but Sloane knew it bothered him.

  “I should have called. I’m sorry.”

  “So how did it go?”

  “Well, I’m not in handcuffs . . . but Rowe had the file on Tina’s murder. I forgot I gave a statement about the gun, not being able to get to it. He called me on it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That it had been Tina’s gun before we got married and that I got rid of it after her death.”

  “Rid of it how?”

  “Dumped it off the boat into the Sound. Said it was a nine-millimeter.”

  “Do you think he bought it?”

  “No.”

  Jenkins looked back up at the house to the second-story window.

  “Something else?” Sloane asked.

  “Just kind of strange . . . seeing her here.”

  Sloane understood. “I know.”

  “You love this woman?”

  Two dogs, a golden retriever and a mutt, ran up the easement from the beach, nails clicking on the pavement, tongues out, panting. Not far behind, two women made their way up the slope in a power walk. Sloane greeted them as they passed, then turned back to Jenkins. “I think I might,” he said.

  “She makes you happy?”

  “Well, it’s been pretty trying lately . . . She took a lie-detector test. She took it for me.”

  “For you?”

  “She didn’t want there to be any doubt. She wanted me to be certain.”

  “So she passed?”

  “Apparently.”

  “And is there?”

  “Is there what?”

  “Any doubt?”

  LAURELHURST

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Joshua Blume had his father’s dark hair and olive complexion, but judging from his meek demeanor as he shuffled into the room, gaze fixed on the floor, shoulders slumped, hands thrust into the pockets of faded and torn blue jeans that hung below his waist, he was more his mother than his father. A mop of black hair extended over his forehead and all but covered his eyes. Rowe’s initial thought was the kid had his head down to see where he was walking. Then another, more troubling thought came to him—how the hell could he have seen anyone or anything through all that hair, in the dark of night?

  When introduced, Joshua responded with a limp handshake and the briefest of eye contact. Rowe didn’t take it personally. He’d met enough of his son’s teenage friends to know that some kids had either been taught how to look an adult in the eye or had the self-confidence to do so on their own. Others did not and never would.

  His father directed Joshua to the chair where he had been sitting and motioned for his wife to move, banishing Mary Beth to one of two brown leather stationary chairs in a corner of the room near a bookcase and reading lamp. Rowe doubted anyone ever sat in the chair and read, but it was part of the facade, along with the baby grand nobody played and the convertible car that anyone who lived in the Northwest knew to be completely impractical.

  “Sit up,” Richard Blume said to his son.

  Joshua dutifully sat up, though it wa
s a matter of degrees and had little impact on his overall posture. He wore a black T-shirt with the words god’s nails and the silhouette of a guitar. Teenage acne pocked his chin and cheeks and likely his forehead, though the hair prevented Rowe from knowing.

  Rowe decided to get to it. “Joshua, we understand you may have some information about something you saw the other night.”

  The kid nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Yes,” Richard corrected.

  Rowe thought he saw the kid roll his eyes beneath the bangs.

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what you saw?” Rowe asked.

  The boy pointed in the direction of the bay window. “I saw someone down near the road.”

  “Okay, Joshua, I’m going to need you to be more specific. Should we go outside so you can show us exactly where you saw this person?”

  “Do we need to do that?” Mary Beth blurted.

  “What time was it when you saw this person?” Crosswhite asked in a gentle voice only a former schoolteacher could muster to calm everyone and let Rowe know he was going about it the wrong way.

  Joshua frowned in thought. “About three-thirty, maybe three-forty-five. Around there.”

  “Are you sure about the time?” Crosswhite asked.

  He glanced in the direction of his father before nodding. They’d obviously had a conversation, and Richard likely had demanded to know, to the exact minute, the time his son had returned home.

  “Yes,” Richard said.

  “Yes,” the son said, sounding annoyed.

  “How can you be certain?” Crosswhite prodded.

  “Because we left the club around three, and I told my friends I had to get home or my dad was going to kill me.”

  “Oh, Joshua.” Mary Beth tried to put a dismissive lilt in her voice, but she sounded more nervous than amused. “You know your father would never hurt you.” She leaned forward to enter the inner circle. “We don’t believe in physical punishment. Joshua has never even been spanked.”

  “Mary Beth. Please,” Richard said.

  Rowe thought it was Richard who could have used a few good spankings as a child.